[saerensenatljn]

Thanks everyone. I thought it might be the case that a paper trail was still necessary.

[Arrocousa]

Quote:

[houkbsdov]

And how did these plants get into China? Did the Peoples' Glorious Democrtic Army move the borders again?!

[saerensenatljn]

Quote:

[LOVEBoy]

From my conversations with Averynov while driving him from airport (Chicago) to Milwaukee and back (this means I had two 90 minute conversations with Leonid, he is very pleasant to talk with)

Leonid Averynov does not feel the occurances of various Vietnamese paphs in and around Malipo, China are natural. He feels these populations have been seeded or transplanted. Then after these transplanted plants have settled in and looked natural, they were pointed out to botany and agriculture students doing graduate work from the various Chinese universities. The articles published by the young, eager and less than cynical students then serve as 'proof' that these are Chinese species and therefore legal to export under Chinese CITES documentation.

However, science as such never limits itself to a single authority, so as long as one or another authority disagrees, there is the claim that these species are indeed Chinese in origin.

As a hobby grower I am glad that there is an odd 'disjunct' aggregation of the finest of the Vietnamese species in the hills around the town of Malipo, China as it means in the USA there is a chance I can get a few documented as being acquired legally plants. The documentation by Chinese graduate students as 'real', of these outlier populations, does screw up conservation efforts. In that some species appear in less need of protection than they really are.

Malipo for centuries was a town that specialized in trading medicinal and culinary herbs and spices into China from Vietnam and all points south and west from there. In more modern times it has a large flower market that specializes in selling seasonal flowers to the Chinese markets. The practice of planting medicinal plants into the forests on the hills around Malipo is a practice used for generations to try and increase supply of plants needed for market. Dr Averynov has good reason to be skeptical of the claim that these disjunct populations are legitimate. On the other hand, a USFWS official really can't argue that articles published by Chinese universities are false just because they have an anecdotal objection from one scientist. Understandably the Chinese government is touchy when you tell them their universities are not doing good research. USFWS has to go along with the Chinese government

So the saga goes on. It will be interesting to see if all of a sudden, several years from now, the USFWS will suddenly go back and try to seize plants from US nurseries who in good faith tried to legally import these horticulturally desirable species.

[houkbsdov]

Quote:

[saerensenatljn]

Quote:

[LOVEBoy]

Well said Mormodes, well said.

Eric, orchids are not illegal drugs, and the rules around them are not set up like the drug laws.

No orchid species is 'illegal'. It is only the method of importation to the USA that may or may not be illegal. Legality has nothing to do with species, just how it got here. Orchids are not regulated like heroin or Ecstasy. The only issue is whether or not a specific plant went through the importation process legally.

The AOS is often way behind what happens with USFWS. The blanket prohibitions to judge certain species has nothing to do with whether or not it is possible to import a plant legally. They are NOT a regulatory enforcement group. The AOS does this for political reasons. They don't make allowances for the possibility somebody does follow the rules and works with USFWS to import a plant. I have yet to figure out how the AOS decides to lift their ban on juding certain species. Sometime I think they just wait until they see a plant is so common in the USA that you stop posting that "its illegal" Just teasing my friend.

When talking about 'legal' orchids, nobody worries about Paph armeniacum, micranthum being legal or illegal. They are so common in the US that there is nobody checking on these. No worry right? After the 1988 CITES convention and before the 1998? (I'm fuzzy on the exact dates), there were tens of thousands of these species imported into the USA. During this roughly decade period there were only a dozen or so importations that had all the then required documents from both mainland China and USFWS. By 1998 of the thousands and thousands of armeniacum and micranthums in the USA only a couple hundred were imported legally. The rest were 'slipped in' with less than complete or correct documentation. So today when you go to an orchid show, for the armeniacum and the micranthum there, I would estimate that less than 10% of them are 'legal' in terms of their import status. And now 30+ years later the USFWS still considers the 'fruit of the poison tree as poison' so today they still would be eligible for confiscation if the USFW had any chance of proving in court how that plant came in. But there are enough legal plants that it is hopeless for them to try, so the issue gets quietly ignored.

[houkbsdov]

Quote:

[JANALA]

NYEric sums it up nicely.

[DghtRdc]

Quote:

[MexicoCity]

i thought Vietnam was not a signatory to cites
or am i confusing it with a different country?

[saerensenatljn]

Quote:

[saerensenatljn]

Quote:

[MexicoCity]

yup, '94
i think i was confusing them with Taiwan

[JANALA]

Quote:

[Freeptube]

Paph. tranlienianum described in 1998 by Olaf Gruss and Perner. If Paph. tranlienianum is growing in China , why was not found there, but seriously after 1998.

If the plants were transferred to China from Vietnam since 1965 or 1988:

Why were transferred this plant (to this date no name) from Vietnam to China. Who does what for a purpose, this time the plant was unknown

[houkbsdov]

Quote:

[phsyalcvqh]

Quote:

[apannamma]

Quote: